Safety barriers or fences are used during the construction of high-rise buildings to prevent construction workers from falling from the building and injuring themselves. They are also useful to prevent materials from falling from the building and for catching any flying debris being blown against the barriers and injuring people below. The safety barriers need to be set up and taken down with relative ease since they are temporary and frequently moved from one location to another as the construction progresses. A safety barrier of this type typically comprises a plurality of posts supporting intervening fence panels.
Various types of support posts and fencing assemblies have been designed to try and address this need for a safety barrier. U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,850 discloses a support for a construction fence. The support comprises a telescoping jack post which can be adjusted to fit snuggly between a floor and ceiling. U.S. Pat. No. 3,589,682 discloses another type of telescopic fence column which has a manually operable jacking system and upper and lower pads for contacting the ceiling and floor of a portion of the building. U.S. Pat. No. 3,946,992 discloses another type of construction fence post which comprises a C-shaped bracket which is used to clamp the post to the edge of the floor section. U.S. Pat. No. 3,734,467 describes an upright for a wall partition which has a compression spring that allows for frictional engagement of the upright between floors of a building under construction. U.S. Pat. No. 6,679,482 discloses an improved construction perimeter guide stanchion. An adjustment system allows one to tightly clamp the pair of jaws at the lower end of the stanchion to the edge of a floor slab in an elevated unfinished building.
Although many attempts have been made to design improved safety barrier systems, there remains a need for a system that is easily erected and dismantled and which is self-adjusting, easily packaged safer and tamper-proof. In Applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/901,141, there is provided a support post and safety fence assembly in which the post has a telescoping inner and outer tube and is supported on a threaded internal shaft coupled to a floor engaging end. A ceiling engaging end is preferably formed with claws that have a number of sharp penetrating points for firm engagement with a support surface. Dynamic adjustability of the support post is provided by internal compression springs which also allow the post to be temporarily positioned in an upright position prior to securement.